🆕Portland Trailblazers X LA Lakers 👉 Lebron And AD Both Have Monster Stat Lines To Lead LA In Game 3

What's up, FYF Sportsmen. It's Lamont here. We're back with another game breakdown video. This was another game of the day selection, selected by one of our subscribers. Obviously, this is probably the most intriguing series of them all. The Los Angeles Lakers are facing a daunting task in the first round against the Portland Trail Blazers. Before we get started today, make sure you guys like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell. Again, we do our best to try to bring you these game day highlight videos. Again, we have some barriers to overcome dealing with copyright issues from the NBA. I think we have all of those particular issues resolved. We are back at it with the game day highlight reaction videos. What we're going to do is we're just going to play this video. As you already know, we like to break down the footage. This game was a very up and down game, at least in the start. It was really, really kind of difficult to tell which team was going to just kind of make that essential run to kind of break away. Again, we're going to get to the highlights. I'll give you guys my summary of what went down and then, again, you guys already know my pick for who I think is going to win this particular series, but let's go ahead and get started with these highlights. This was a game, you guys, where the Portland Trail Blazers just could not guard without fouling. They sent the Los Angeles Lakers to the foul line 40 times. Again, when we look at this start in the first quarter, Damian Lillard definitely started off hot. Let me know early that that dislocated finger was not going to be a problem. His hot shooting kept the Blazers pretty much in the lead for most of the first half. Early on, we saw the two-headed beast with the Lakers, LeBron James and Anthony Davis, kind of take off. There's Damian Lillard with another deep three. Again, that shooting really, really carried the Blazers through the first half. Again, these transition buckets, transition buckets for the Lakers. Again, they're the second best transition offense in the NBA. You cannot let them get out and play fast. Really, really hard to stop them, especially with their half-court defense. Again, the Lakers made a concerted effort today to continue to tack the basket over and over and over, whether it was O'Reilly, whether it was A.D., whether it was Kuzma. As you can see right there, it started to take a toll on some of those bigs. You can see Dwight Howard's being physical with white side, so he's taking white side out of the picture. His shot blocking this series has been great, so that was good to see. And they're really testing the limits of the refs. They're making the refs call fouls. They're putting that into the hands of the refs. So, again, it's going to be a tough, tough, tough series for the Blazers. And again, Damian Lillard, he was tacking the rim a little bit more today, and that was because they're really running him off that three-point line, and they're making him work for those buckets. And Anthony Davis, again, I don't know if the Blazers really, really have a solid answer for Anthony Davis. They don't have anyone who can guard him. Winning Gabriel looks as if he could do a decent job, and then he gets in foul trouble. So, again, it's going to be a tough one for the Blazers with regards to matchups. And there you go right there. Anthony Davis, one of the best defenders in the league, denies Damian Lillard. And then you allow the Lakers in transition. And so off the turnover, the first thing you have to do with the Lakers, again, you see white side and Lillard in the back. You've got to be able to get back and protect your rim. We'll call him a great game. I think he had about 28 points today as well. Again, they're allowing the Blazers to take mid-range shots and layups. Right there, they did give up three at halftime. So at halftime, the Portland Trail Blazers were up 4-57-53. And things kind of shifted in the third quarter. Lakers looked like they slowed the game down a little bit, and there's LeBron with one of his few threes of the game. If they're going to go under those screens, he's going to take those shots. And if he's making them, they're tough to beat. Mellow had a decent game today. Decent, decent game today. Definitely better than his last outing. I think he had a little over 20 points. Nerkick, again, another very quiet game. They're doing a very good job of taking Nerkick out of this offense. And with the struggles that Lillard is having and trying to figure out this double team or this shade double teams that the Lakers are throwing at him, they're really going to need Nerkick to put up buckets. There's LeBron James with another three. And again, they're essentially unbeatable if LeBron James is making that shot. You got to pick your poison with LeBron, and they allow him to do anything he wanted tonight. There we go. Nerkick should have really went into the chest of McGee right there. Again, draw a foul, get to the free-throw line, something other than throw up a soft shot like that. And AD in that pick and roll, man. When you're playing from the outside in, white side can't guard that. None of the Lakers bigs can really guard that. When they're playing from the outside in, look how far Anthony Davis is out playing on the perimeter. They don't want white side out there. It opens up the lane for a number of things to happen. And there we go. On the offensive glass, Anthony Davis is unstoppable. The Lakers out-rebounded the Portland Trail Blazers by an extremely large margin. It was not close. And with all those second-chance opportunities, it's not surprised me why the Lakers went to the free-throw line so many times. And as you can see right here, this is when the Lakers really kind of started to make that next-level run to kind of separate the game. And unlike that first game, as the Blakers made that secondary run, the Lakers were able to slow the game down and make shots. And there he has a long rebound right there. That's a rebound that the Blazers have to get. They gave it up. And again, LeBron James is penetrating. Because they're so worried about his ability to finish at the rim, guys like Dwight Howard, Anthony Davis getting easy lobs all day. There's another lob right there. No resistance. And this is why coaches talk about stopping the ball. That's why stopping the ball at half-court is so important because if you allow James to penetrate like that, you get Anthony Davis going, and now you have Anthony Davis making mid-range shots with no problem, no hesitation. Again, another screen. LeBron James is getting to the rim. Offensive rebound by AD. Again, they're making it too easy for the Lakers to dominate. Again, and what you saw time and time again today was the Lakers were not just driving. They were driving right into the chest of the Blazer bigs, really putting the pressure on those refs to make that foul call. As we know, the Blazers foul the most. And again, it's gonna be tough when you have that type of reputation. And there we have it right there, man. Lakers take this one, 116 to 108. This is really, this was really that swing game. This was really a game that the Portland Trail Blazers needed to give them confidence going as far as winning this series. Losing that game right there really puts a lot of pressure on Damian Lillard and those guys to perform game four. I'm curious to see how they respond. But as it stands right now, it looks like the Lakers have kind of figured out how they want to guard Damian Lillard and what they're going to do going forward in the future as they head into, you know, towards the end of this series. This is not, this is kind of how I predicted things to go. That first game is always a filler game. You want to fill the other team out. You want to see what type of stuff they're running. And the problem with the Blazers is there's not really much diversity to their offense. They run the high pick and roll with their bigs. Damian Lillard was able to punish some teams repeatedly off that high pick and roll because most teams don't have bigs athletic enough to go out and cover. But the Morris twin and Anthony Davis, when put in that pick and roll, that high ball screen, they've done a good job of hedging hard, getting up into Damian Lillard, forcing him to make a play. And unfortunately for the Blazers, their bigs are letting them down. I know that those high pick and rolls farther out beyond the three-point line is not necessarily something that those bigs are used to doing. When you're put in that situation, you have to rim run. You have to roll to the basket hard. And because those bigs aren't willing to roll to the basket hard, to make Anthony Davis, to keep that defense, Laker defense, honest, they're really leaving Damian Lillard stranded on the island with the ball. And his playmaking ability really hasn't been dominant. They're forcing Damian Lillard to become a playmaker, not a scorer. And again, he's a great scorer. He's going to get some points. He's going to get his points. But when it comes down to crunch time and you're continually spamming the same play over and over and over, you don't have much diversity to your offense. This is something that great teams are going to be able to figure out. And it just takes a stretch of five minutes for them to get stops. And as we saw with this game right here, it was fairly close for the most part. The Lakers were down at halftime. They went on a stretch of about eight minutes of great basketball. It put them up, gave them enough cushion to where they could just kind of coast out to the lead. Kudos to the Lakers for another strong outing. LeBron James and Anthony Davis, man, big, big, big numbers today. Like I said, I hope Portland, Portland's going to have to really go back to the drawing board for this one. We saw today that they started Whiteside and Yusef Nurkic, if I'm correct. I may be wrong on that, but I think they did start both of those guys. And the problem is when you start both of your bigs like that, who do you have to go to on the bench? I mean, you can't rely on Winnie and Gabriel for high major minutes. As soon as he comes into the game, Anthony Davis targets him, gets him in foul trouble immediately. So he's essentially irrelevant. Zach Collins has been ruled out for the rest of the season, season ending ankle surgery. And so, you know, I really, I really just am awestruck at the way the Portland Trail Blazers are playing and the way they're finishing out, the way they finished out the last two games. You guys, make sure you let me know what you think. What do you guys think about this series? How do you forecast this series going? I mean, if you did predict the Blazers to win it all, is that still your prediction? Do you still see Damian Lillard finding a way to get a win in game four and possibly stealing a win in game five? I mean, I think that's a bit of a stretch to see Portland win those two games like that. But, you know, we've seen crazier things. We've seen crazier things happen. But again, when you're dealing with an AC, they have a really, really, really, really a steep hill to climb at this particular time. We're going to break down the stats, game stats today. We're going to break down the Blazers stats first. Carmela Anthony, a good bounce back performance, 20 points, six rebounds to assist. Yusuf Nurkic, again, just a quiet game, 10.7 rebounds. I'm not for sure what's going on with that Blazer offense, why they're going away from using Nurkic so much. Or at least, you got to at least try to post him up. I know it's going to be difficult trying to score over those towers, but you got to keep the Laker defense honest. Whiteside, eight points, eight rebounds. Again, another quiet game. Dwight Howard's been doing a good job of getting in Whiteside's head, being physical with him. Damian Lillard, 34 points, five rebounds, seven assists. Like I said, the scoring is always going to be there for this team. It's a matter if they can close games. And not just close games, can those other guys step up? CJ, great first half, 28 points, eight rebounds, four assists, now in that fourth quarter, his shooting percentage dropped immensely and they needed his scoring in that fourth. But that's what happens when you're on a team with a short bench, a short rotation. That's, those are the things that happens. They play, you know, for the most part, they only played about seven guys tonight. Only seven guys really got meaningful minutes. We saw him go to, with Anthony Simons early on in the first half. Maybe they need to try to go with Anthony Simons a little bit more, but Simons in his 14 minutes in the game, he gave you 0.0 rebounds and zero assists. So again, Simons is, if he's going to be out there, he has to do a little bit, give some type of production. But if you're out there 14 minutes, you don't give anything on the offensive or defensive end, then what are you really doing? So, you know, the big three foot Portland, they're doing their job. It's the other guys, it's the other guys who are, the Lakers are doing a good job of making it hard on them. We're going to break down the Lakers stats and then we're going to get up out of here. Anthony Davis, man, another strong, good performance. 29 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists, close to a triple double. I mean, 41 minutes. I mean, this guy's playing high minutes. He's playing, you know, he's playing some of his best basketball. LeBron James, 38 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists, man. Those two guys combined. And again, across the board, across the bench, this is what we didn't see in game one. Again, there's not going to be amazing stat lines from these bench guys, but in units and in combination, you know, the Lakers are able to go, when we look at their teams, they're going, I mean, the Lakers are going nine deep. They're playing nine deep. Mark Morris for 15 minutes. Dwight Howard, 17 minutes. Kuzma, 23. Caruso, 27. Caldwell-Polk, 28. Danny Green, 32. JaVale McGree, 14. LeBron, 34. AD, look, they going nine deep. What they're doing is they are wearing, again, they're playing the long game with the Blazers. And there's a lot of basketball coaches who use this particular strategy. They use their depth to wear a team down. And again, we see that the Portland Trail Blazers are able to stay with the Lakers for two to three quarters. That's when we see the Lakers really, really show the ability to, you know, use their experience, their ability to continue to play fast basketball. They can expose the Portland Trail Blazers for their lack of depth. And I see that Terry Stotts is trying, he's trying to give guys a chance. You know, he has to give guys like Winnie and Gabriel some run. He has to try to play Anthony Simons. But again, at the end of the day, when you look at that bench, they just lack the depth to give guys like Damian Lillard the breather. CJ can't really get a breather. Carmelo's older, he definitely needs breathers. They're trying to play his own, and he's not giving them much. So again, when you have so many guys coming into the game, giving you empty stats against his Laker team, on top of the fact that you are one of the most fouling teams in the NBA, one of the worst defenses in the NBA. Again, this is not a great mix for a success. So hopefully, Terry Stotts can go to the drawing board and find some way to get these issues resolved. But when we round out these stats, we rounded these stats, it looks like Danny Green, eight points, four rebounds, 32 minutes. Great defense today. Again, those stats don't really show how well he's been guarding the pick and roll game two and game three. Caldwell Pope, 13 and three. Alex Caruso, 10, four and seven. Kyle Kuzma, seven and six. And Dwight Howard, great game. I love the way he's been physical with wide side, just kind of taking them out the game. Five points, 10 rebounds, one assist in 17 minutes. So it looks like the Lakers have, they're finding a way. I like how Frank Vogel even used J.R. Smith for a few minutes in the first half and the second half. Again, helping them get his rhythm. Again, they're using that depth. You're using that experience to beat the Portland Trail Blazers right now. So again, can't look forward to seeing the next game. Game four is going to be a must win for the Portland Trail Blazers. And we're going to see how they respond when the pressure's on. We need to see how they respond. This is going to really show me, you know, is CJ a hundred percent? Is Lillard going to be a hundred percent? Are they going to find ways to get Yusef Nurkic involved? I don't know. Hopefully they can. Would definitely love to see the Blazers tie this series up, but the way it's looking now, it looks like, it's looking like that the Lakers have figured this out and will probably go on to take this series in five or six games. But another great game day reaction video. Make sure, again, if you have any questions or if you have any comments about these highlights, if you have any insight on a game that you want us to speak on, let us know in the comments. Again, all of these things, every time you mention, you know, mention things in the comments, we look at them. These are things that we can speak on, maybe answer some of your questions in the next video. And then when we do eventually go live, these are things that we can also discuss in further discussions. So, you know, we're getting prepared for a lot of big things here at FYF Sports. We want you guys to be a part of it. So you make sure that you're engaging in all of our content, whether it's on Instagram, Twitter, or in the comments on all of our YouTube videos. FYF Sports, man, another great, another great game day, game of the day highlight reaction video. Here we are. ♪ I get them racks in them racks ♪ ♪ I'm a young gunner, keep the pistol, won't take ---- from me, been robbed, now I keep it on me, tried me, I find dummy, was broke down, ain't have no money, these niggas and bitches was acting funny, Cut it short, rap it like a mummy Keep racks round, stay stuntin' Bust some moves if you been hustlin' Sold drugs if you been a hustlin' Know how to give out testes to the cousins Bust up, cuz it's all or nothin' Get packs out, get racks in Shawt up, my bitches get cash to spend Do what you want, niggas get a ass to kiss Literally, I'm the only one that she kiss Might take a shot, but no sack Hit the scratch and lay back Ten toes, slip these packs Got healthy pockets, trip the fat I'm doin' me the upset, RIP to school, we up next Move the front from the back Some real niggas got my back Or check me off on my blast We strapped up fuckin' fast, tryna tip me off on my blast Always strippin' hard, I get them racks in Stay flippin' packs, I get them racks in Spiffy, designing down, I get them racks in This what you whip, sippin' off the coupe, I get them racks in Always strippin' hard, I get them racks in Stay flippin' packs, I get them racks in Spiffy, designing down, I get them racks in This what you whip, sippin' off the coupe, I get them racks in